Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698945012908.pdf (South Africa)
Declaration Declaration of the International Conference on Women and the Changing World of Work 1.

The International Conference on Women and the Changing World of Work builds upon and reinforces the conference conclusions of the sixty-first session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

The Conference: Affirms the SDG 5 targets, which include the ending of all forms of discrimination against women and eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls in both the public and private spheres.
Reaffirms the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and reiterates the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women as well as other relevant international legal frameworks for realising gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, including those that address women’s economic empowerment.
Recognises that the gender responsive implementation of the AU Agenda 2063 for sustainable development in Africa is a critical component to facilitating women’s economic empowerment.
Further recognises the important role played by regional conventions, instruments and initiatives in the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, including, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa.

2.
2.

Based on the deliberations of the International Conference on Women and the Changing World of Work, the following conclusions are agreed to: a) That women’s right to work is critical for economic empowerment.

This includes the right to decent work and full and productive employment as a critical means of implementing SDG 5 on achieving gender equality.

b) That the feminisation of poverty is a significant challenge in women’s economic empowerment.
c) That transformation of the world of work will help achieve exponential economic growth and assist with ending poverty.

2 d) That gender inequalities in labour markets persist and that the pace and scale of realising women’s economic towards empowerment has been unacceptably slow.

Parliaments have a critical role to play in overseeing that the pace of change is accelerated.
transformation e) The continued gender gaps in labour force participation and leadership; wages and income; occupational segregation; social norms and workplace culture; unequal working conditions; the burden of women’s unpaid domestic and care work and gaps in social protection and commits to finding ways of addressing these.

f) That access to and effective usage of technology is key to unlocking women’s economic potential.
Ensuring that women and girls are technologically empowered, computer literate and able to navigate their way on the internet, is critical to growing their knowledge base, especially so in the case of rural women and girls.

In addition, Parliaments need to engage in oversight to ensure that the cost of access to broadband is not exorbitant, thereby excluding the poor from using it for their development.
g) The empowerment of indigenous women as well as the empowerment of rural women and girls is critical to the economic empowerment of women.

h) Structural barriers to women’s economic empowerment can be exacerbated in conflict and post-conflict refugee and humanitarian settings.

i) Changing women’s lives is not possible without states ensuring that expenditure is planned and monitored from a gender perspective and that the gendered implications of all government programmes are clear.
j) Structural barriers to gender equality impose constraints on women in balancing work and family responsibilities and that these barriers need to be eliminated to ensure women’s full participation in the world of work.

3 k) The sharing of family responsibilities creates an enabling family environment for women’s economic empowerment and encourages the creation of societies where men and women make significant contributions to the home and community, including unpaid care and domestic work.
l) The right to quality and inclusive education is a critical component of narrowing the gender gap in the economy.

This includes the need for women and girls to acquire skills in digital fluency and technology.

m) Violence against women in all its forms has serious consequences for the quality of life of women, including the fact that it serves as a major impediment to women’s economic empowerment and their social and economic development.
n) Sexual harassment is a significant impediment to women’s health and well-being and to their economic advancement.

o) That men and boys must be encouraged to take an active part in and to engage fully as agents and beneficiaries for change in the realisation of women’s economic empowerment.

p) Civil society organisations and the private sector have a critical role to play as stakeholders and agents in ensuring women’s economic empowerment.

3.
3.

Based on the above conclusions, the Conference encourages Parliaments to: a) Effectively oversee poverty alleviation strategies, including addressing the plight of women and girls in situations of extreme poverty.

This includes overseeing gender gaps in labour force participation, wages, income, pensions and social protection as a matter of priority.
b) Conduct oversight of the integration of government action for women’s economic empowerment into national sustainable development, poverty eradication and sectoral strategies, policies and action plans at all levels.

c) Ensure that appropriate legal frameworks exist for the protection of rights, safety and security of women and girls in conflict, post-conflict and refugee settings.
4 d) Take action at national, regional and a global level to strengthen normative and legal frameworks for full employment and decent work and the eradication of gender discrimination on the whole.

e) Oversee the maximisation of targeted financing to accelerate the achievement of women’s economic empowerment.

f) Be rigorous in ensuring that gender responsive budgeting is used as a tool in passing and overseeing government budgets.
g) Encourage legislative reform that seeks to address structural barriers that constrain work and family responsibilities of women.

h) Oversee gender-responsive education policies and strategies at all levels, including ongoing, lifelong learning opportunities for women and girls.

i) Strengthen the capacity, resources and the authority of national gender equality mechanisms so that they can support and monitor the implementation of action plans.
Specifically, Parliaments should adequately capacitate, resource and support the work of Women’s Caucuses in Parliament.

j) Accelerate reform and initiatives to address violence against women and its impact on the economic and social empowerment of women through vigorous oversight in relation to violence against women and to ensuring that budgets for expenditure in this regard are ring-fenced.
Parliaments should seek to ensure that government budgets prioritise care work in relation to violence against women and that this is adequately provided for.

k) Adopt sexual harassment policies that cover all aspects of sexual harassment, including harassment by Members of Parliament to members of staff.

Parliaments should set the example of adopting a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment.
l) Commit to forming partnerships and engaging civil society and the private sector and ensuring their regular and meaningful participation in legislative and oversight processes.

5 m) Develop national action plans for oversight of the attainment of gender equality insofar as women’s economic empowerment is concerned.

These should have clear targets and benchmarks against which progress should be measured.
n) Further build, support and capacitate integrated and coordinated national and regional initiatives to promote gender justice and women’s socio-economic empowerment the established gender machinery.

through Cape Town, REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA 30 August 2017 6